Review: Cool Beans Pod System

Cool Beans

One of my guilty pleasures is that I love coffee, add a twist of convenience to it and I’m thrilled. Which explains the glee when I opened a notebook, unused since spring, to find a business card neatly tucked on the last page entry. Memories of Cool Beans Coffee came back to mind, a compostable coffee pod system we sampled at a local trade show.

The Cool Beans website is nicely laid out, with a scroll bar of coffee blends to look through, a neat “taste like” pdf for flavor comparison, they offer a choice to sign up and links to their facebook/twitter sites, so far so good.

I found myself sending off a quick email asking for more details and perhaps a trial of their coffee. While I really liked the idea of compostability, it comes down to the flavor! Could Cool Beans match, or beat, what we are currently drinking?

Accessibility, first let me say that you can’t get the Cool Beans unit at your local box store, point deducted.  I got a call plus an email response, informing me that I needed to have an “in-house” demo with a dealer/rep type person.

I had a full day planned already, now I have to add “clean the house for company” so I can have a “how to” pep talk about coffee brewers..

sigh.. Normal people would pass at this point but I did it for you guys, I hope you enjoy it.

It took a week to find a mutually good time to meet with the rep, who snarkily  explained that they typically deal with businesses, or trade shows. They provide a unit to business groups free of charge for a purchase of 3 cases of coffee monthly, residential units are owned due to liability.

The unit can brew tea as well, the system changes to a pulsing water delivery to allow a standard tea bag to seep between water pulses, good touch.  Point Earned. Plus, if you drink a lot of tea they provide a blue cup for tea use only. Point Earned.  Let’s face it, coffee oils remain in the delivery system, which is noticeable in a cup of tea brewed after coffee.

As soon as the rep left I brewed myself tea and liked the pulse feature, the tea was nicely brewed, I also noticed that this unit brews HOT liquids.  Point Earned.  I notice the unit was loud. Point Deducted.  Coffee brewing waited until evening, once the magic hour, and my husband, arrived, the coffee testing was on.

Filling the water reservoir is easy, using a pour though on the top front or by removing the entire cover of the unit.  I will say, since this has happened twice in less than 24 hours, the unit seems to get an air lock after refilling, forcing you to wait for the bubble to clear. Point(S) Deducted

Once the unit decided it was in the mood to pump water, yes it was fully heated, we got our first cup of coffee, it too was HOT, point already earned on this one. Again, the unit ran loudly, deduction point already noted as well.  The cup didn’t fill completely, however on subsequent test our mug did seem to get the full 12 oz of coffee.

Regarding flavor: As advised by our coffee system rep, you have to “seat” the pods to get good brewing. This allows the multiple headed hot water delivery system to get maximum contact with the pod.  I ran one cup without seating the pod, as a test,  it was pallid weak coffee, point taken. Once you get the technique down, the brewing is nice, however, the flavor is just okay, actually somewhat bitter. The coffee is decent but we were not blown away by any of the flavors we tried.

I filled out the survey that we don’t like flavored coffee but would like to try their decafs, I also noted that medium roast were preferred. We didn’t have any samples of decaf, there was a good medium roast sampling with a few dark roasts.   The flavored coffees included will not be tested, if the coffee is bitter to start with, the oils used to flavor the coffee makes them more bitter, in my opinion at least.

Our rep explained the cost, 24 pods are under $10, however you have to buy their brewing system at a cost of $270.  There is the nicety of having compostable pods… BUT each pod is wrapped in a foil package, which has to go to the land fill.

My conclusion was made the second time in less than 12 hours that we had a water lock, this unit has to GO..   With the pod system I could justify a change as long as the coffee was up to par, but in this case it is not. With all the wrappers going to the landfill, I don’t see any advantage over Kcup system.  You can only get Cool Beans from one company vs the availability of other brewing systems.  The water reservoir is half the size, you are constantly refilling it, thankfully refilling the petite unit is easy.  The other obvious mood killer, other than the cost, is lengthy brewing time and how loud the unit is in comparison to their competition, Keurig.

Nice idea but they need to tweek a few things.

Additional Note about compost vs landfill:

Unless you actually compost the coffee pods, or get the pods to your composting facility,the whole concept is a waste.

Why, anything that is sent to a landfill isn’t composted, landfills are lined pits where drained fluids are considered hazardous waste. Large pits are lined with clay, filled, then covered, this could be considered a waste tomb. Without aeration, moisture, and sunlight you can’t compost the contents, gases from these landfills are now being recaptured and converted into energy.

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